Best Records and EPs of the year 2017... so far

Here we are again, half of the year has almost passed... Which means it´s time to unveil our list with our 25 best records and EPs of the year so far! According to tradition, the albums and EPs are listed in alphabetical order, as the proper ranking will arrive at the end of 2017, as usual. Hoping you enjoy these amazing selection of great music (the year has been quite good to date, and what´s ahead looks exciting) so we recommend you to stay tunned, because, for starters our favourite songs of this six months are about to be online very soon!

Aimee Mann - Mental Illness
Alexandra Savior - Belladonna of Sadness
Apartamentos Acapulco - Nuevos Testamentos
Chastity Belt - I Used to Spend So Much Time Alone
Danny de la Matyr - Crybaby
Desperate Journalist - Grow Up
Fazerdaze - Morningside
Ghost Transmission - Echoes
Hazel English - Just Give In/ Never Going Home
Hurray for the Riff Raff - The Navigator
Kevin Morby - City Music
Land of Talk - Life After Youth
Novella - Change of State
Priests - Nothing Feels Natural
Renaldo & Clara - Els Afores
Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever - The French Press
Rose Elinor Dougall- Stellular
Slowdive - Slowdive
Stutter Steps - Floored
The Bats - The Deep Set
The Courtneys - The Courtneys II
The Fireworks - Dream About You EP
The Magnetic Fields - 50 Songs Memoir
The Mountain Goats - Goths
Últim Cavall - Records de Kyoto

More lists? Click on the years to check our 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 selections!

* Note: Currently listening to Fleet Foxes, Ride, She Sir new albums or the terrific EP from We. the Pigs... pretty sure some of them are "fated" to be on the Best Of lists at the end of the year...

Primavera Sound 2017 in brief, day 3

And here arrives the third and final take of our quick chronicles of the Primavera Sound 2017, with our impressions of Saturday 3rd, just an excellent day, with a couple of really memorable gigs to put a terrific end to a Festival that might rank lower than previous editions for us, but still has had much (much more than initially expected, to be honest) to be enjoyed, celebrated and written about. So, time to go back to the Fòrum!

The Good

Van Morrison: A music myth that is part of my childhood and teenager soundtrack, that opened his gig with 'Too Late', 'Moondance' and 'Have I Told You Lately'. It was just impossible not to get emotional...

The "lion of Belfast" gets jazzy. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

Angel Olsen: First thing first. She would deserve to be on the final section of this post, taking the top spot of the day (but we had to choose just one gig). Impeccable, magnetic, irresistible from start to finish. In total command of the stage, the tunes and the audience during the complete set. Confidence, talent, solid band backing her, charm and huge tunes, the climax arriving with the gigantic 'Sister', one of the Blog's favourite tunes from past year. Just mesmerizing.

Angel Olsen. 'Our' woman at Primavera Sound. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

Hamilton Leithauser: Another voice and mighty presence live to follow. Hamilton is a 'surefire'. Every time his throat explodes, you 'go places', every word he sings sounds true and heartfelt. He seemed really happy to be at Ptichfork stage, enjoying himself and giving all he has to put a great show. And his solo career is already sprinkled with amazing tunes, like 'Sick as a Dog', 'Alexandra', '1959' and, of course, the immense 'A 1.000 Times', another favourite from last year. You can't wrong with Hamilton.

Mr. Leithauser, would watch him live a 1.000 times. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

The Bad

Queuing for Auditori (second part): Yet again, there has to be a better way to organize this sort of massive gigs at Auditori. This time (2nd Magnetic Fields show) we didn't have to buy an extra-ticket, but still we queued for quite a while... and missed a couple of opening tunes. Again. 
Van Morrison: Yes, this is not a mistake. Van 'the man' show deserves to be in the previous category but also in this one. Because as much of a touching moment was seeing him live, his singing (or his lack of, better said) and the sort of bland, 'Starbucks' jazz versions of his eternal tunes they don't any justice at all to his memorable legacy.
As****es: We haven't complained about annoying people at the Festival so far. Luckily, we felt we didn't face as many annoying people (chit-chatters, posers) as previous editions... until Saturday. During Hamilton's gig we dealt with the 'traditional' category of bored folks joining the friend that really likes who's playing... and are decided to make him (and all the audience) notice they are THAT uninterested. But there was an even more irritating situation. During the majestic Angel Olsen's show we had to listen a couple of, how can we define them? Internet trolls showing up? XXI century haters? Why on Earth someone should decide, with all the options they had at PS, to go watch someone that they hate in advance? And why the need to express that hate to the unknown mass that is gathered to hear & see the artist? What a pain in the arse (and absurdly wrong) they were...

The Queen
Teenage Fanclub: I insist, Angel Olsen also deserves to be included in this spot. But having to choose only one option as the top gig of the day we have to go with the Scottish legends because a) It was the first time (finally!!!) seeing them live; b) they were terrific and c) they played 'Start Again', 'Star Sign', 'About You', 'I Need Direction', 'Sparky's Dream', 'I'm In Love', 'Everything Flows', and the list can go on... Did we need to say anything else? How can you beat that? A lot of singing our throats out, sweating, dancing and smiling for the best gig (alongside Ms. Olsen) of the Primavera Sound Festival 2017 for us.

McGinley, Blake and Love, indiepop dream team. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

Here are the links of the previous chapters! Day 1 and Day 2 

Primavera Sound 2017 in brief, day 2

As promised, here's the second round of our quick chronicles of how it was Primavera Sound 2017 for us. After the first post devoted to Thursday 1st of June, here comes Friday 2nd, a day that seemed the weakest in paper, but still had several noteworthy moments to enjoy and highlight. Let the good times roll!

The Good

Lawrence Arabia: Charming pop music at the Hidden Stage courtesy of James Milne (what an amicable frontman) and his locally assembled band (Hi-jauh to the rescue!), putting out an impeccable, gentle and immediately lovable show to start the afternoon with a big smile.

Lawrence Arabia, Christchurch-Barcelona pop connection. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

Mitski: Among the best album debuts of last year, Mitski Miyawaki stark, minimalist staging approach might make you think on a cold performer on a first impression. What a mistake that is. She lets the music do the talking, with the fury coming from the bursting guitars, the visceral screams and the blows of her melodic vocal turns. And soon you realize she is going to be in the same league of St. Vincent or Angel Olsen. She is untamable.

Mitski, static wonder. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

The Make-up: You might find the band very unsurprising, too classic in their attempt to recreate that "vintage" funk-soul-rock spirit. But NO ONE can't deny the power, joy and good vibes a night with Ian Svenonius can provide to any willing to listen & watch. Summoning the spirits of James Brown and Iggy Pop, giving everything he has and beyond to engage the audience, the wild frontman and his well-oiled band are a guarantee of fun (and a threat to that hipster self-absorption).

The Make-up, rock'n'roll suicide. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

The Bad

Queing for Auditori: There has to be a better way to organize this sort of massives events at Auditori. I mean, you waste a lot of time just queueing to buy the mandatory extra-tickets in advance... and then you spend another lifetime queueing again to enter the gig. The result? You have missed the four first tunes of the show. Frustrating.
Eating at Primavera: Rephrasing a famous Woody Allen quote "The food in this place is terrible. Yes, and it's so expensive one would expect not even the Brits will pay for it". Enough said...

The Queen
The Magnetic Fields: Another "first time" and a mandatory gig was seeing Stephen Merritt live presenting his new concept album '50 songs memoir'. Splitted in two shows (Friday and Saturday), of 25 songs each, The Magnetic Fields proposal was a serious threat to every PS17 line-up planning... but a lovely experience to be seen and heard. Cute and intimate stage setup (very nice visuals) a seven-piece band enveloping every single tune with grace and elegance. An entertaining story-biography (more engaging the first day, imo the songs were more diverse and less languid) to be told with that deadpan, offbeat sense of humour that is one of Merritt's trademark. But another of his "signatures", by far the more important one (and just in case you didn't know it), is that the man can write POP TUNES. At Primavera Sound we were lucky to hear a great bunch of them.

Special guests at Stephen Merritt's home. Photo: Bloodbuzzed

Brief of the third and final "big day" of the PS17, Saturday 3rd, arriving very soon!

Primavera Sound 2017: my draft schedule

Time to honour another Blog tradition! As the timetables of the Primavera Sound Festival 2017 have been unveiled, here's our personal schedule on a first, draft, impression (we are still working on it, and some additional bands could/should be added. Being honest, this isn't the best edition for us, on the contrary. Plus, some overlaps (as usual), are also eroding the choices on a year with some gaps with 'really nothing mandatory to listen'. Time to do some 'research' to complete the routes... but hey, discovering interesting bands is one of the most attractive things of Festivals. Anyway, this is what our PS 2017 looks like right now (we are open to suggestions)!

Tuesday, May 30th, Sala Apolo
20:00 Les Sueques (Sala Apolo)
21:00 Let's Eat Grandma (Sala Apolo)
22:00 Cigarettes After Sex (Sala Apolo)
As we are pretty unsure about Wednesday, why not starting the Festival on Tuesday?

Wednesday,  May 31st, Parc del Fòrum
20:30 Local Natives*
22:00 Saint Etienne*

Still under serious consideration, worth going to the Fòrum for just two gigs that are not exactly our 'cup of tea'?

Thursday, June 1st, Parc del Fòrum
17:00 Kokoshca (Adidas)
18:00 Kevin Morby (Heineken) or Jens Lenkman (Hidden Stage)
19:15 Alexandra Savoir (Pitchfork)
20:05 Julia Jacklin (Adidas)
21:45 The Molochs (Adidas)
22:40 The Afghan Whigs (Ray-Ban)
Pretty comfortable and reasonable day with only two choices to make. We have doubts between see Kevin Morby or Jens Lekman (not an enthusiast of Lekman's last record, but never seen him live, going to be a close call). And maybe The Zombies for The Molochs as last minute change. Also, if we have the day off at work the next day or we really want more music we would stay for Kate Tempest and The Damned.

Friday, June 2nd, Parc del Fòrum
17:00 Lawrence Arabia (Hidden Stage)
19:15 Mitski (Pitchfork)
20:15 The Magnetic Fields* (Auditori)
20:50 Mac Demarco (Heineken)
22:35 Grandaddy (Ray-Ban)
22:50 Swans (Pitchfork)
00:40 Sleaford Mods (Ray-Ban)
Just plain 'meh' day for us. It's a pity we have to decide between Mitski and Whitney on a day with not a lot to see (for our tastes, of course). We have to choose which day are we going to see The Magnetic Fields, as our main concert of Friday or as the earliest gig of the day on Saturday.

Saturday, June 3rd, Parc del Fòrum
16:00 The Magnetic Fields* (Auditori)
17:40 Weyes Blood (Primavera)
19:45 Van Morrison (Heineken)*
21:30 Teenage Fanclub (Primavera Sound)
22:35 Hamilton Leithauser (Pitchfork)
23:30 LVL UP (Adidas)
02:30 Preoccupations (Pitchfork)
Probably our 'biggest' day, but painfully affected with the cruel clash between our beloved Angel Olsen and Van Morrison (really? same time? makes no sense at all). The rest of choices should combine well... Teeenage Fanclub, finally!!!

Sunday, June 4th, 
Huge questions marks also for the closing day. Need to listen!

Primavera Sound 2017: first impressions

No gala, no previous show, no videogame... not even a supposedly cool video on Youtube to mock people while they obsessively await for a rocket to be launched. Nothing. Just a not very remarkable imagery and a countdown at their Facebook page... And here it is! The Primavera Sound Festival 2017's line-up unveiled! Kaboom! Or wait... kaboom?

Because, at first glance, this is sort of a letdown. By far the less impressive line-up of the editions I've been lucky to attend. I never had such a limited number of artists/bands that are a MUST to watch. And there's also an inescapable feeling of deja vu (history repeating) mixed with very few surprises (Teenage Fanclub & Angel Olsen were mandatory, and having seen the latest in a small venue the excitement gets notoriously reduced...). Too much hip-hop, indietronic and electronic acts (don't we have Sonar Festival for that?) for my taste. Where are The Bats? The Julie Ruin/Le Tigre? Filthy Friends? The Decemberists playing 'The Crane Wife'? Rose Elinor Dougall? Novella? I could go on forever...

Needless to say, this is just my opinion... Besides, as it always happens with PS, there's always many names among the "small print" of the line-up worth watching and/or checking, something this year becomes even more obvious and necessary. So, honouring the Blog’s tradition, here’s our traditional rough (we don't have the timetables yet) “paint & colour” version of the line-up with our first impressions on the bands we are willing to see. Looks pretty yellow, right? Sure it will change (suggestions are welcomed)... A lot to listen ahead!!

CONFIRMED ARTISTS FOR PRIMAVERA SOUND 2017

31 May -4 June

!!! (Chk Chk Chk) •  7 Notas 7 Colores •  Abdullah Rashim •  About Leaving •  The Afghan Whigs •  Against Me! •  Agorazein •  Alex Cameron •  Alexandra Savior •  Alien Tango •  Âme live •  Angel Olsen •  Anímic •  Annette Peacock •  Aphex Twin •  Arcade Fire •  Aries •  Aurora Halal •  Autarkic •  Avalon Emerson •  BADBADNOTGOOD •  Barbott •  Belako •  Ben UFO •  Berri Txarrak •  Bicep •  The Black Angels •  Bon Iver •  Broken Social Scene •  Cigarettes After Sex •  CLUBZ •  Dj Coco •  Conttra •  Converge •  Cymbal Eat Guitars •  The Damned •  Dave P. •  Death Grips •  Descendents •  Discos Paradiso Crew •  Dixon •  Don't DJ •  Dj Dustin •  El Petit de Cal Eril •  Elmini •  Elza Soares •  Fatima Yamaha •  Ferenc •  Flying Lotus •  Formation •  Frank Ocean •  Front 242 •  Gas •  Glass Animals •  Gojira •  Gordi •  Grace Jones •  Grandaddy •  The Growlers •  Hamilton Leithauser •  Henrik Schwarz •  Her Little Donkey •  Huerco S. •  HVOB •  InnerCut •  Iosonouncane •  It's Not Not •  Japandroids •  Jardín de la Croix •  Jeremy Jay •  JMII •  Joey Purp •  John Talabot Disco Set •  Joy Orbison •  Julia Jacklin •  Julie Doiron •  Junun featuring Shye Ben Tzur & The Rajasthan Express •  Kelly Lee Owens •  Kepa Junkera & Los Hermanos Cubero •  Kevin Morby •  Khidja •  King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard •  King Krule •  King Sunny Adé •  KiNK •  Kokoshca •  Kornél Kovács •  Lady Wray •  Lauer •  Les Cruet •  Les Sueques •  Let's Eat Grandma •  Local Natives •  Lord Of The Isles •  Lvl Up •  Mac DeMarco •  The Magnetic Fields •  The Make-Up •  Mannequin Pussy •  Màquina Total •  Maresme •  Marie Davidson •  Marta Delmont •  Matrixxman •  Medalla •  Melange •  Metronomy •  Michael Mayer •  Miguel •  Mishima •  Mitski •  The Molochs •  Moscoman •  Muñeco •  Murdoc •  Museless •  The Mystery Lights •  Nikki Lane •  No Zu •  Noga Erez •  Nots •  Odina •  Operators •  PAVVLA •  Pearson Sound •  Pedro Vian •  Pender Street Steppers •  Phurpa •  Pinegrove •  Playback Maracas •  Polar Inertia •  Pond •  Preoccupations •  Priests •  Rebuig •  Recondite •  Retirada! •  Romare •  Rosalía & Raül Refree •  Royal Trux •  Run The Jewels •  S U R V I V E •  Saint Etienne •  Salfumán •  Sampha •  Sau Poler •  Seu Jorge plays The Life Aquatic a tribute to David Bowie •  Shelby Grey •  Shellac •  Sinkane •  Skepta •  Skinny Puppy •  Slayer •  Sleaford Mods •  Sleep •  Slim Cessna's Auto Club •  Solange •  Soledad Vélez •  Sorry Kate •  Swans •  Swet Shop Boys •  Talaboman •  Teenage Fanclub •  Dj Tennis •  This Is Not This Heat •  Triángulo de Amor Bizarro •  Tuff City Kids •  Tycho •  Vaadat Charigim •  Van Morrison •  Vladimir Ivkovic •  Vox Low •  Wand •  The Waterparties •  The Wave Pictures •  The Wedding Present •  Weval •  Weyes Blood •  The Wheels •  Whitney •  Wild Beasts •  William Tyler •  The XX •  Youandewan •  The Zombies perform “Odessey & Oracle” 50th Anniversary

Green- Definetely seeing them. Absolute must
Orange- If there are no overlaps (in particular with the green ones), I'll be there for sure
Yellow- Curious about it/on "research mode"/nice option if there's no overlap

The Indie Anthology 47: essential songs

For the next round of our Indie Anthology I propose you one of my favourite tunes from an indiepop (and very often neglected) genius...

Song: I Don't Believe You
Artist: The Magnetic Fields
Year: 2004

Jumped quite late on The Magnetic Fields' bandwagon. Some friend recommended me, telling me that being such a huge The Divine Comedy's fan I would love '69 Love Songs'. But I do admit that when I got the album in my hands I thought, a triple record? And so the moment passed... but barely for a couple of years, when 'I' was released and I got haunted by 'I Don't Believe You', its instant melody and magic cello. Then quickly came 'All My Little Words', 'The Book of Love', 'I Don't Believe in the Sun', '1.000 Fireflies' or personal favourite 'Nothing Matters when we're Dancing'. Stephen Merritt, the impossible crossover between Stuart Murdoch, Neil Hannon and Calvin Johnson. Pure genius.